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Happy 50th birthday to Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" |
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Nov 01, 2006 at 08:00 AM |
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness/starving hysterical naked...."
No, those are not the ravings of a deadline-stressed nanochip designer with too much caffeine in his system and a penchant for the dramatic.
Those words are the unforgettable opening lines of the late Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," one of the seminal poetic works of the Beat Generation.
Howl and Other Poems was first published on this day in 1956 by City Lights Books in San Francisco. The book's publication immediately stirred up a hornet's nest of controversy, leaving the self-appointed protectors of decency howling about the book's obscenity and leading to censorship and arrests. Ultimately, a court decision found the work "not obscene," and the work has become a classic of modern American literature.
Happy 50th, "Howl." May you blow readers' minds for millennia to come.
(Photo by Dale Jones)
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